judge city

Late night screams in the subway station are usually a cause for  powerwalking,  freaking out, and panicking…that is unless the screams are coming from two tiny, quarreling DBIPTS (Drunk Bitches in Party Tops)*….

My two friends along with a few onlookers knew better than to rubberneck for this long, but the fight unfolding at the turnstiles was fascinating. I had never seen two women viciously fight like they were–all the while smiling. I mean they were straight-up smile-fighting! Cocaine is a helluva drug.

From their tight smiles and clenched teeth  they unleashed furies of ‘Fuck You’s,’  reaching pitches only dogs could hear.  It all seemed like an elaborate joke, a performance piece if you will.

Suddenly, things took a turn for the Bad Girls Club as the louder woman grabbed the smaller one’s hair, dragging her to the dirty subway floor in one swift move.

Instinctively, my roommate and I jumped the turnstiles to break up the fight. This was a bad idea, but there was something inside me that hurt to see two women beat each other up while some creep in the corner recorded it. There was something telling me it was the right (albeit stupid) thing to do.

Despite our attempts (and my screaming ‘Stop it you are ladies!’–what does that even mean?), the aggressive one only fought harder. Finally she broke free and shouted at me, ‘GET AWAY YOU FAT BITCH!’

Ba’scuse me? Me? Fat bitch? OKAY BAI C U NEVER!!!!!!!

I walked away tough, but soon broke into tears.

Their screaming (and smiling) tapered into the distance, though I could still see the violence replay in my mind. ‘Fat bitch.’ I was just trying to stop some girl-on-girl hate!

My friends joked, “If Karlie Kloss intervened they would’ve called her a fat bitch.” I laughed, they were probably right. No, they were right. Were they right? My rational brain was losing the fight.

And so, ‘fat bitch’ rang in my head and I thought of the barrage of outfits I switched in and out of before leaving as to avoid looking ‘fat.’ I thought of how unfair it is that I could be reduced to ‘fat bitch.’  I thought about how unfair it is that people hear themselves described as a ‘fat bitch’ more than once a day. I thought about how unfair it is that the easiest way to bring down most women in fights is to call her ‘ugly’ and ‘fat.’

Another scary thought popped into my mind: This was the first time anyone had actually called me fat. The only person calling me fat on a regular basis was, well…me. Every 15 minutes (5 if I’m wearing a bathing suit) for the last eleven and half years of my life. I had been meaner to myself  than this psycho-coked-out-girl could ever be…and she was awful!

I was even more embarrassed by how upset the word ‘fat’ made me, how much my weight is still tied to my self-worth. There are far worse things to be called, such as ‘boring,’ ‘horrible,’ ‘ignorant,’ etc.  than freakin’ ‘fat.’  But the ease at which ‘fat bitch’ rolled off her tongue was equally troubling.

My experience is an all too familiar scenario for women engaged in various levels of confrontation.  This kind of appearance-based reduction is almost always exclusive to women as a tool of dismissal, as a reminder that a woman is only so good as her societal fuckability level.

We’ve all seen it from the frat bro at a party (Girl rebuffs advances: ‘You’re gross anyway’) to women v. women (Girl tells Girl to stop bumping into her: ‘You’re gross anyway’). When a guy’s looks are under attack, it’s usually seen as a ‘whatever.’ Why go after looks when masculinity is at stake? The difference is, with women, the insult to looks is meant as the confrontation-ender, the argument ‘winner’ because to attack feminine identity it still seems the best tactic is to degrade her looks.

So many smart, amazing, beautiful women have told me that some of their most painful memories have been times when they’ve been called  ‘ugly’ or ‘fat’ or ‘gross.’ The low-blow of ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’ and ‘gross’ is a lazy argument, somewhat laughable by someone more confident than I. But yet there is a linger of hurt. If I was rail thin, would she have called me ‘ugly’? If I was Karlie Kloss, would I have gotten a half-hearted ‘bitch?’

We know we are not fat, or at least that being fat isn’t a bad thing. We know that we are not ugly, or at least that our looks don’t affect our ability to be a great sister, friend, daughter, etc. That’s why it hurts the most, because we know the accuser is wrong. They’re wrong, but that little voice of self-doubt, self-loathing all women learn to deal with with wants to differ. What if they’re right? The ever-present whisper roars, gnaws, clouds the mind. For others lasting mere seconds and for many, lifetimes.

Because try as best as you can to forget about the voice, it will always hurt just a little bit to hear yourself dismissed because of something that you can’t control, that has nothing to do with your self-worth. It hurts because others see that your identity as a woman is dependent on your appearance no matter how things seem to change.

We don’t all have to sit around and kumbaya with all the little girls and boys. No one can expect to get along with everyone.  What about everyone waking up and doing the best that they can? We all know how rough life can be–why be so rough with one another?

Until the conversation changes, until we can look past looks, the best thing is to be the nicest person you can be to yourself and that will carry onto others. When you’re in a disagreement, to use your intelligence and not degrade. To try and empathize, to be a human.

That girl gave me a choice: let her reduce me to my looks like every ignorant asshole in a fight OR choose to love myself even more. I’m going to try out the latter for a change.

And as the amazing Casey Wilson once tweeted, ‘I’m not too fat, I’m too PHAT.’

*DBIPT I use lovingly as a term since I have often been a DBIPT